Espress Yourself! A Comedy About… Coffee
Final Draught @ Weimar Room
4:00pm, Fri 5 Mar 2004
Score: 6
Short Review: Undergraduate
Melbourne theatre group Final Draught present this rather simplistic play, intertwining stories of love, greed, and life in general around coffee. The only really interesting thread of the story involved deadshits Pete and Joe in their get-rich-quick schemes.
The humour is very undergraduate, but that didn’t perturb the crowd of mostly schoolkids. There are, however, some very funny soliloquies that various characters occasionally launch into – Cat’s Joe Scully rant was one such mirthful encounter, as was the corporatisation bluster. The odd Star Wars reference, and the “real gun” discussion, round out the highlights.
There was soooooo much about this show that I wanted to hate – the overacting, the wooden acting, the non-acting, the tacky dialog, the bad double entendres, the crap sight gags, the shitty stage management – but Espress Yourself! stumbles to a climax that is so ridiculously stupid, I found myself grinning like a loon. I dunno whether that’s much of a recommendation, but there you go.